BSF’s punitive fire compels Pakistan Rangers to plead for ceasefire

The Border Security Force’s (BSF’s) three-day punitive fire across the international border compelled Pakistan Rangers on Sunday to plead with in Jammu to stop the firing.

“On Western borders, the befitting reply by BSF units to unprovoked shelling and firing across international boundary by Pak forces has forced them to plead for ceasefire,” said a senior BSF officer.

“Today (on May 20), Rangers called up Jammu BSF formation and beseeched to stop firing”. The officer informed that for the last three days, the precision fire of the BSF on Pakistani firing locations inflicted heavy losses on them.

“Yesterday, the firing from BSF troopers found their mark with one of the Rangers in chicken neck area of Aknoor,” he said.

The BSF has also released a 19 second thermal video footage showing how an enemy bunker was blown up in its precision fire.

Early Friday, a day before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the state, a BSF jawan constable Sita Ram Upadhayay and four civilians were killed and over a dozen others were injured in Pak firing on the border in RS Pura and Arnia sectors of Jammu district. The four civilians who were killed were identified as Sat Pal, 60, Jagmohan, 45, Tarsem Lal, 52, and Manjeet Kaur, 45.

Jammu and Kashmir witnessed a spurt in Pakistani shelling and firing along the IB and the Line of Control (LoC) this year. Over 700 incidents of fire and shelling were reported, which left 38 people including 18 security personnel dead and scores injured.

On Sunday, the BSF also said that no trans-border tunnel was found in Hiranagar sector of Kathua district after five suspected terrorists were said to have infiltrated into Indian territory.

“We were working on probability. Otherwise, tunnel checking is now part of BSF’s daily operational duty,” said the officer.

“Though the initial impression we got was that some infiltrators might have crossed. We went by the past cases. However, on verification, ground search and analysis up to now, we feel that those five people (caught on thermal imagers) could have been villagers, locals or at most internal smugglers. Still nothing is ruled out. We are working on this along with other agencies too but nothing substantial has come out so far,” he said.